View-Master

View-Master is the trademark name of a line of special-format stereoscopes and corresponding View-Master "reels", which are thin cardboard disks containing seven stereoscopic 3-D pairs of small transparent color photographs on film. It was originally manufactured and sold by Sawyer's. The View-Master system was introduced in 1939, four years after the advent of Kodachrome color film made the use of small, high-quality photographic color images practical. Tourist attraction and travel views predominated in View-Master's early lists of reels, most of which were meant to be of interest to users of all ages. Most current View-Master reels are intended for children. There are over 4300 different View-Master reels.

History

1919–1956: early photo services

Edwin Eugene Mayer worked as a pharmacist at Owl Drug store in downtown Portland, Oregon, after serving in the U.S. Army in World War I. He built up a photo-finishing business there, and bought into Sawyer's Photo Finishing Service in 1919 with the help of his father August Mayer, his fiancée Eva McAnulty, and her sister Vi McAnulty. Edwin described how he started the business in a letter dated April 1, 1954: "Suffice to say that in 1919, what little it was, was purchased with borrowed ($3,500) money from Dad, aided by about $1,600 in insurance money Eva got when her father died and which was left in permanently, and $1,600 borrowed from Vi and repaid, along with Dad's notes, within a few years." As the business grew, Ed Mayer incorporated in about 1926, taking on partners Harold and Beulth F. Graves, Thomas and Pauline Meyer, and Augusta and Raymond F. Kelly, renaming the business Sawyer Service, Inc. The company relocated to a large two-story building at 181 Ella St., near Morrison Street in Portland, Oregon. The company was producing photographic postcards and album sets as souvenirs by 1926, when Harold Graves joined Sawyer's. Graves handled marketing for the products while Mayer ran the business. Later, photographic greeting cards were added to the Sawyer's product line, marketed to major department stores. Sawyer's was the nation's largest producer of scenic postcards in the 1920s and the future View-Master viewer eventually became an extension of the two-dimensional cards.

The company took the first steps towards developing the View-Master after Edwin Mayer and Graves met with William Gruber, a player-piano technician of German origin trained by Welte & Sons and an avid photographer living in Portland. Mayer and Gruber had both developed devices for viewing stereo images, but Gruber had made up a stereo imaging rig out of two Kodak Bantam Specials mounted together on a tripod. He designed a machine that mounted the tiny pieces of Kodachrome color transparency film into reels made from heavy paper stock used by the player pianos he serviced. A special viewer was also designed and produced. He had the idea of updating the old-fashioned stereoscope by using the new Kodachrome 16-mm color film, which had recently become available.

New business venture

A View-Master reel holds 14 film transparencies in seven pairs that create the seven stereoscopic images. The components of each pair are viewed simultaneously, one by each eye, thus simulating binocular depth perception. According to a 1960 court document, the Gruber-Sawyer partner venture began from that first meeting in 1938. Thereafter, Ed Mayer negotiated with Gruber while production methods and some marketing were developed. A formal agreement was signed in February 1942 between Gruber and Sawyer partners, doing business as Sawyer's. Mayer and people within the Sawyer's organization were uncertain about what to call the new product, but they eventually settled on the name of View-Master. The View-Master brand name eventually came to be recognized by 65% of the world's population, but Gruber disliked the name, believing that it sounded too much like Toast-Master, Mix-Master or some other kitchen appliance. The View-Master was introduced at the 1939 New York World's Fair, marked "Patent Applied For". It was intended as an alternative to the scenic postcard, and was originally sold at photography shops, stationery stores and scenic-attraction gift shops. The main subjects of View-Master reels were Carlsbad Caverns and the Grand Canyon. The View-Master was marketed through Mayer's photo-finishing, postcard and greeting card company Sawyer's Service, Inc., known eventually as Sawyer's, Inc. The partnership led to the retail sales of View-Master viewers and reels. The patent for the viewing device was issued in 1940, and this original model came to be called the Model A viewer. Within a very short time, the View-Master supplanted the postcard business at Sawyer's.

Expansion Mayer gave details of the company's expansion in a letter dated April 1, 1954:

In 1939, 20 years after starting the business, we had, by dint of hard work and long hours and frugal living, accumulated a business (Sawyer's) worth about $58,000.00 and Western Photo Supply Co. owning the buildings, worth about $30,000.00. The above figures were for the total business and buildings owned by the Kellys, Graves, Mayers and Meyers. In 1946, we had already grown a lot from 1939, and Sawyer's made a lease with Western Photo Supply Co., they to build and lease two new buildings to Sawyer's, in addition to the two we already had. At this point, Sawyer's also decided to change its structure from a partnership to a corporation, for various good reasons, one of which was to permit our children to participate in the stock ownership. In the 1940s, the United States military recognized the potential for View-Master products for personnel training, purchasing 100,000 viewers and nearly six million reels from 1942 to the end of World War II in 1945. After the development of the View-Master, Sawyer's, Inc. moved into a new building at 735 S.W. 20th Place in downtown Portland. The company also occupied a building next door at 740 S.W. 21st Avenue. In 1951, Mayer and his Sawyer's partners built a large plant in Washington County, Oregon. After moving to the new plant, Mayer leased the building on 20th Place to Oregon Television, Inc.

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